Echo Research, a global specialist in reputation analysis and stakeholder research, launched the 2012 study analyzing the value of reputation across corporate America – the findings identify a direct causal link between corporate reputation and company value as measured by market capitalization.

There are distinct winners and losers. The Reputation Contributions of individual companies ranged from as high as 58% (Apple) to as low as -39% (Sears Holdings). At the beginning of 2012 Apple’s corporate reputation was potent enough to deliver as much as $217B of value to its shareholders. Conversely, Sears’ reputation was such that it was destroying value to the tune of $1.3B. Clearly, corporate reputation can be both a valuable asset and a costly liability.

Source: Echo Research

Highlights include:

Corporate reputations contributing a total of $3.19 trillion to market cap in the S&P500 alone.

The US businesses with the most valuable reputations are Apple, Exxon Mobil and Chevron with a combined worth of $645B.

On average, 26 percent of market cap of companies in the study can be attributed to corporate reputation.

According to Sandra Macleod, Group CEO of Echo Research, “The importance of a strong, well structured corporate reputation has long been beyond any doubt. From Echo’s over two decades of providing reputation research, we know that few CEOs would question whether or not it ranks among their company’s most important assets but at the same time they would struggle to say what it’s worth and more importantly, how it should be managed in order to maximize its value. We believe reputation valuation analytics fundamentally corrects that.”

Reputation Contribution, a measure of the proportion of a company’s market cap attributable to its reputation, averages 26 percent across the index of companies included in the study. Put another way, the corporate reputations of America’s largest public companies are currently underpinning investor confidence in companies’ ability to deliver the economic returns expected to the extent that they’re generating 26 percent of the total shareholder value.